1366 Technologies, a spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says it can produce a very efficient solar cell from silicon which will be in the market in two years.
The Lexington, Mass.-based company on Monday plans to disclose the details of its Self-Aligned Cell (SAC) architecture, a set of technologies it has developed to convert 18 percent of sunlight to electricity with polysilicon, the most common solar cell material. Engineers forecast that they will be able to hit 19 percent efficiency in the next nine months without adding significant cost to existing processes, said Ely Sachs, chief technology officer.
(Credit:
Martin LaMonica/CNET)
In addition, the company expects to announce in coming weeks that a solar manufacturer plans to purchase the machinery 1366 Technologies has developed for making the cells.
The announcement is a validation of 1366 Technologies' technical approach of making incremental improvements to well-established silicon solar cells, rather than seeking out new photovoltaic materials as many other solar start-ups have.
But the company, started in early 2008, has had to shift its business strategy from making solar panels themselves to selling equipment to other manufacturers. The poor financing environment and the intense price pressure on panel makers prompted the company to change course, Sachs said.
"This is a strategic change. We realized that we have very deep, unusually deep, competency in production equipment design," said Sachs. "Also, this is well-suited to doing in the U.S. whereas solar cell making is going to be a harder game to play in the U.S."
The long-term goal is sell to thousands of machines capable of producing more efficient cells to photovoltaic suppliers, he added. With the improvements in cell efficiency, the end product--solar panels--can be cheaper than electricity made from natural gas in the next few years and ultimately coal, he said.
Because of the daunting financing challenges in energy, other green-tech companies, including solar thermal start-up Ausra, have had to shift strategies in an effort to get their technologies to market more quickly.
Trapping more light
There are already silicon solar cells that get higher efficiency than what 1366 Technologies says it can do. SunPower has been selling panels at over 20 percent efficiency for a few years. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech spinoff Suniva late last month said that it could convert more than 18 percent of sunlight to electricity on monocrystalline silicon cells and Chinese provider Suntech has a technology called Pluto which boasts improvements in that range.
But the efficiency rating for the majority of commercially available silicon solar cells is in the 15 percent range. Panels using cells made from alternative materials, such as a combination of copper, indium, gallium, and selenide (CIGS), are lower efficiency--about 9 percent or 10 percent--but are cheaper to produce.
The technologies that 1366 has developed are significant because they can be added onto to existing processes and are complementary with each other, say company executives. Some are related to trapping more light on the solar cell while another uses a different method for wiring cells together.
One technique is to create a three-dimensional pattern, or topography, on the surface on the cells that keeps light on the cell long enough so that more can be absorbed, Sachs explained.
The other process, called surface metallization, shrinks the size of the wires, or "fingers," on the front of cells. Instead of using the typical screen printing method, 1366 Technologies engineers have built a machine that's able to make the silver wires using electroplating and to place them on the cell. Shrinking the fingers from the typical 120 microns to 30 microns reduces shading on the cell and allows manufacturers to put more fingers on a cell to improve performance, Sachs said. The company also expects to be able to replace silver with copper to reduce cost, he added.
"These are three manufacturing technologies and they play together so you can use them all and get the cumulative benefits but you can use just one," he said.
1366 Technologies has already licensed another light-trapping technology where a grooved surface on the back of solar cells reflects light back onto the surface. Earlier this year, the company received a research grant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory which it is still participating in.
What will it take to make solar electricity cheaper than grid power?
The 20 employees at 1366 Technologies, a solar start-up in Lexington, Mass., say they have the answer, and it's within sight. Rather than pursue one technology breakthrough, the company is hammering away at the cost of solar with a series of incremental improvements. The target is to cut the cost of making silicon cells in half to get below $1 per watt by 2012.
Ely Sachs and Frank van Mierlo at the ribbon-cutton ceremony for the opening of 1366 Technologies plant opening. Click on the image to see a photo gallery of the facility.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)1366 Technologies, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off, is the subject of a profile, "Making solar cheaper than coal." It's the third installment of CNET News' "Green Tech at a Crossroads" special report.
For the first two articles, see "In search of the Google of green tech" and "They got their green-tech bill. So now what?"
It's a small company, but 1366 Technologies has assembled an impressive team, according to Michael Rogol of solar-consulting firm Photon Consulting. Frank van Mierlo, the company's president, boasts that 35 percent of its employees have a Ph.D. and that combined, its staff holds more than 100 years of solar-photovoltaic industry experience.
Among those Ph.D.s is Chief Technical Officer Emmanuel (Ely) Sachs, an MIT professor of mechanical engineering. He developed the original lab work that 1366 Technologies is commercializing. To the right is a clip of my interview with Sachs and van Mierlo.
Like many people who work in the green-tech industry, Sachs and van Mierlo chose to work in solar because they want to make a difference in some of the world's big problems--energy security and climate change.
Although the company's success is far from assured, it has assembled the attributes that many green-tech start-ups need to succeed: world-class technology, entrepreneurial skills, and, at least for now, access to capital.
It also faces the same challenge as many green-tech companies: scaling up its business fast enough so that it can deliver a cost-effective product.
"The biggest challenge for any solar start-up is to ramp up manufacturing capacity in order to drive down cost. Financing may create additional hurdles, but it is really execution of operations, in line with technology expectations, that will be the challenge," said Rogol. "Given 1366's operations team, I suspect that it will be an exciting couple of years for them, as they ramp up operations and pursue rapid cost reductions. Only time will tell if it will work."
LEXINGTON, Mass.--1366 Technologies is a 20-person start-up that's chasing an ambitious goal--making solar power cheaper than coal-made electricity--through a series of small steps.
The company on Thursday hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony here at its pilot facility plant, where its engineers are making changes to standard solar cell production to cut the cost of solar power to less than $1 per watt.
1366 Technologies' approach of layering on small efficiency gains to standard silicon cells has received positive reviews from solar industry watchers.
It is commercializing technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by professor Ely Sachs. Sachs, now the chief technology officer of 1366 Technologies, on Thursday said that the company has a pipeline of improvements, each meant to build off the other, all while using incumbent silicon solar technology.
It's less flashy than pursuing radically new ideas, but the company projects that--with sufficient funding--it can hit its less-than-coal mark by about 2015, said President Frank van Mierlo.
"These are all basically manufacturing ideas--it's not new materials or trying to industrialize photosynthesis through some unlikely process," van Mierlo said. "It's just hammering away at manufacturing costs."
The company raised $12.4 million earlier this year on the basis of a light-capturing method. A "grooved ribbon" wire is placed below solar cells to reflect light back onto the cell that would otherwise be lost. That technology is being licensed to other cell manufacturers, van Mierlo said.
A solar furnace at 1366 Technologies' newly opened pilot plant.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)At its Lexington facility, company engineers are now testing what they refer to as "idea No. 2," using copper rather than silver-based wiring, which will improve electrical conductivity, van Mierlo explained.
Altogether, the company has four patents that it's seeking to commercialize, he said.
The Lexington plant is a pilot facility to test out the company's technologies based on polysilicon cells. The goal is to break ground on a large-scale manufacturing plant in one year for production in 2010, van Mierlo said. It will sell its cells to panel manufacturers.
To finance that expansion, the company hopes to raise another round of funding, on the order of $50 million, he said.
"The next step is an automated plant. In this industry, either you grow quickly or you will not be relevant," said van Mierlo.
An MIT spinoff with Ethernet co-inventor Bob Metcalfe on its board has landed seed money to bring the cost of solar power to the much-pursued level of $1 per watt.
Called 1366 Technologies, the company raised $12.4 million from North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners, where Metcalfe is partner, to build a pilot solar cell plant in Lexington, Mass., co-founder Ely Sachs said on Wednesday.
1366 Technologies co-founder and MIT professor Ely Sachs.
(Credit: 1366 Technologies)Rather than design new materials in pursuit of a solar cell efficiency breakthrough as many newly formed solar companies are doing, 1366 Technologies is focusing on manufacturing improvements around silicon cells.
A combination of two manufacturing technologies will allow it to make polycrystalline cells 25 percent more efficient at converting light to electricity, executives said.
The technology was developed in the labs of Sachs, a noted professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who developed the "string ribbon" manufacturing process commercialized by Evergreen Solar.
Its goal is to produce solar cells at one dollar per watt, or 10 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2012, which is about half the manufacturing cost now. At that price, solar power is competitive with electricity from coal.
The company chose to focus on silicon because it's a material that's well understood, nontoxic, and reliable. Polycrystalline silicon is the most commonly used solar cell material.
"(Silicon) has all the fundamentals in place," said Sachs. "It has been on a 20 percent learning curve, meaning that over the 30-year history of photovoltaics, costs have declined by 20 percent every time the cumulative production levels double."
One technology the company is commercializing is called "grooved ribbon," an alternative method for wiring solar cells together. Small mirrors reflect light back onto solar cells that would otherwise be reflected away from the cell. That technique adds about a 3 percent improvement in cell production.
The second technology the company is working on is a way to take low-cost silicon wafers and package them for cell production, Sachs explained.
Both processes, which the company has sought patents for, can be used in existing solar manufacturing sites.
In fact, in addition to planning to make its own 25-megawatt pilot plant, 1366 Technologies is also in discussions with other solar manufacturers to license its technology, said company President Frank van Mierlo.
The company's name comes from the solar constant, or the average amount of solar radiation that hits Earth's atmosphere, which is 1366 watts per square meter.
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